6/20/2017 Summer solstice: the perfect day to bask in a dazzling scientic feat | Science | The Guardian

Summer solstice: the perfect day to bask

in a dazzling scientic feat
Wednesday is the longest day of the northern hemispheres year but
few realise that it also marks a monumental achievement in rational
thinking

Stuart Clark
Tuesday 20 June 2017 13.34BST

If you live in the northern hemisphere, Wednesday is the

summer solstice the longest day of the year. In London, the
sun will rise at 04:43 and then creep across the sky for 16
hours, 38 minutes and 18 seconds before setting at 21:21. For
some cultures, the solstice is seen as the beginning of the
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summer, while others think of it more as midsummer. It is

marked with celebrations across the northern hemisphere,
most famously at Stonehenge.

Traditionally, such revels were conducted in skyclad fashion.

But these days turning up starkers at an English heritage site is
probably not the best course of action. Not that I object to the
odd bit of pagan revelry, but for me the summer solstice is the
anniversary of one of the greatest achievements of the human
mind: it marks the day we rst calculated the size of the Earth.

This spectacular feat took place not in the modern

technological age, but way back, over 2000 years ago, in the
time of the classical Greeks.

Eratosthenes of Cyrene was the chief librarian at the great

library of Alexandria in the third century BC. So the story goes,
he read in one of the librarys many manuscripts an account of
the sun being directly overhead on the summer solstice as seen
from Syene (now Aswan, Egypt). This was known because the
shadows disappeared at noon, when the sun was directly
overhead. This sparked his curiosity and he set out to make the
same observation in Alexandria. On the next solstice, he
watched as the shadows grew small but did not disappear,
even at noon.

The length of the shadows in Alexandria indicated that the sun

was seven degrees away from being directly overhead.
Eratosthenes realised that the only way for the shadow to
disappear at Syene but not at Alexandria was if the Earths
surface was curved. Since a full circle contains 360 degrees, it
meant that Syene and Alexandria were roughly one ftieth of
the Earths circumference away from each other.

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Knowing that Syene is roughly 5000 stadia away from

Alexandria, Eratosthenes calculated that the circumference of
the Earth was about 250,000 stadia. In modern distance
measurements, thats about 44,000km which is remarkably
close to todays measurement of 40,075km.

I rst heard the story when it was told by Carl Sagan in his
masterpiece TV series, Cosmos. I still marvel at Eratostheness
achievement a stunning piece of deduction, based only on a
few simple observations and an ocean of clear thinking.

Eratosthenes also calculated that the tilt of the Earths polar

axis (23.5 degrees) is why we have the solstice in the rst place.
Astronomically, the northern hemispheres summer solstice
marks the day when Earths north pole is most pointed towards
the sun, making the sun appear to rise earlier, set later and
climb to its highest point in the sky.

The further north you go, the longer the period of daylight you
experience. By the time you reach the Artic circle, the sun is
above the horizon all day and night, giving rise to the so-called
midnight sun phenomenon.

The winter solstice the shortest day of the northern year

takes place around 21 December, when the north pole is
inclined away from the sun. We in the north experience the
winter solstice as the southern hemisphere gets its summer
equivalent.

So on Wednesday, by all means take your clothes o and dance

in the golden rays of dawn. But in the midst of your merriment,
think about Eratosthenes achievement and the power of
rational thought. That too is something to celebrate.

Stuart Clark is the author of Is There Life on Mars? (Quercus). He

will be delivering the Guardian masterclass on Is there life
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